Marriage in Victorian Literature (Middlemarch)

Hmm, Middlemarch is the second Victorian novel I have read in which a father (alright uncle) has to pass on a proposal of marriage from a much older man; the other was Hard Times. Also, the second Victorian novel which addresses the frustrations of intellectually gifted women; the other being Jane Eyre. I am not sure what I would have done if I had been Dorothy Brooke's guardian. I think I would have refused my consent for her to marry either of her suitors until she was twenty-one. I cannot predict which of them she will marry, but I can predict it is going to be an unhappy marriage.

An unhappy marriage, yes. But there is a twist which I will not ruin by spilling the beans.

SPOILER

I have been wrong-footed by the marriage between Casaubon and Dorothea. I thought Dorothea would soon come to realise she made a dreadful mistake, and, that after all, she was not in love with him. She is disappointed to hear he is not the great scholar she thought, or that he does not involve her with his work as much as she would like. Nevertheless, she is still proud of him, and upset when he starts to fall ill. She seems not to be interested in starting an affair with young Ladislaw (by chap 30 anyway). So the marriage was working, sort of.